What's In The Past
by VTPM
Summary: Darkness was expected in the ANBU, but Kakashi never saw this coming. And it hurts. The wounds always run far deeper than expected.


A heavy reek of blood filled the air as the moonlight gleamed crimson off the oil black puddles in the streets, and the only sounds were of quiet murmurings and plastic bags being dragged across the dirt roads. It was best to work quickly and get it over with; try not to think about it all, but it's impossible with all the noise echoing in his head.

_"Who do you think could have done something as monstrous as this?"_

_"Itachi Uchiha."_

_"He committed this atrocity."_

_"If this is the scope of Itachi's hatred, it ran deep."_

_"What a mission, even for the ANBU.."_

The words kept repeating themselves in his head, no one speaking in the midst of the gruesome task that had been assigned to them to break up the mantra. Kakashi wondered if he was the only one who felt sick. It was impossible to tell the others' thoughts under their masks.

When his mind exhausted itself of those shreds of conversation, it chose to focus on _why?_ He'd asked, but no one would answer him, so he was left to wonder. He had been well aware of the darkness in Itachi right from the beginning, but.. _This_ had never been an outcome he'd seen. He'd had such high hopes for him..

Behind him, the body bag dragged in the dirt and kicked up a trail of dust, sometimes smearing the red stains as he inevitably couldn't avoid them all. The corpses felt so heavy.

Kakashi reached the center plaza of the Uchiha District for the umpteenth time, letting the end of the bag drop down to the ground beside the dozens of others. When Tenzo stopped beside him to let another bag fall next to them, he stared into the dark eyes of his mask for some sign of emotion or reassurance.

The Wood Style user remained still and silent for a moment, gazing back at him with nothing but empty space before looking toward the large pile of logs and branches. "We're running out of space. I guess we should start the fire now."

Yugao nodded her agreement, turning her fake face on him. "Captain?"

There was a waver in her voice. He wasn't alone, after all. It comforted him, but only slightly.

"Right," he murmured wearily, picking his way through the maze of bodies to stand beside the burn pit. There was no way to make this better; to make the mass corpse burning feel right, but.. He was the holder of a Sharingan, no matter how undeserving of it he was, and maybe it would be just a little less awful if he took up the gruesome ceremony, with their eye and their jutsu. Weaving through the handsigns slowly and ignoring the ache in his chest, he said softly, "Fire Style: Fireball Jutsu.." A deep breath, then a burst of flames that lit up the night and threw harsh black shadows over the many bags surrounding the bonfire, only making the shapes of the people inside even more pronounced.

Once a steady fire had been established, Tenzo and Yugao wordlessly began to pick up bags and throw them into the inferno, working fast and purposefully.

Kakashi looked down at the nearest sack lying at his feet and picked it up bridal style, then heaved the dead weight into the fire pit. He didn't want to stop and stare as the bag burned and shriveled away, revealing the skin and bone and lifeless eyes beneath, so he quickly averted his gaze and moved on to the next closest one.

Just as he thought he was getting the hang of it and could empty himself of all the thoughts, he picked up a bag significantly lighter than the others; the contents practically just a feather cradled between his arms. Regardless, he tossed the bag away with a numb mind, focusing on the next bag, just focus on the next one and throw it and _don't look_-

But as he hauled the body off the ground and turned to throw it, his eyes got lost in the flickering fire. The Sharingan saw right past the black smoke and orange tongues to the charred skin and blackened bones inside. His arms lost their strength and dropped his leaden burden, attention riveted to the broken infant being rapidly devoured. Thoughts of jumping into the fire and pulling the poor thing out crossed him, no matter how useless the attempts to save it would be, and luckily he didn't get to consider it long as Tenzo took up the bag he'd dropped and threw it over top of the horrid sight. It brought his focus back to the situation at hand, and he wondered how he'd gotten used to the scent of burning flesh so quickly as to not choke.

"Yugao can handle the rest of these. Let's go bring back more."

_More_. Right, they'd really only just started, hadn't they? It felt like they'd been at this for days.

Tenzo's presence wasn't comforting to him, so he trudged off down another street on his own, picking up the unbagged bodies that hadn't been tended to yet and dragging them back to the plaza to Yugao. He wandered on auto pilot, slowly clearing the road of the unsightly mess, then wandering into murky homes to pull yet even more out of their beds.

On the fifth house, Kakashi found himself in a children's bedroom, two untidy beds and a rug depicting cheerful animals outlined in silver moonlight. It was a peaceful scene of two clearly beloved young ones; peaceful, at least, if you could ignore the closet door half ripped off its hinges and the two young boys splayed out on the floor as if they'd spilled from the tiny room. Their throats were slashed with a gaping, oozing wound and their eyes stared in blank terror at nothing. He could still feel some warmth left in them as he picked them up and slung them over his shoulder, feeling the red trickle down his neck and back.

The night wore on like an endless nightmare, but with the last few streets to be checked and the final bodies being added as fuel for the towering fire, he at least took some relief in knowing the sickening night was drawing to a close.

Tenzo's words ran through his head again.

_"If this is the scope of Itachi's hatred, it ran deep."_

_Why?_

_Why do this?_

_Why didn't I see it coming..?_

On pure instinct, Kakashi looked up at the large window on the second story of a familiar apartment building, feeling the hollow feeling in his chest expand even further. All the times he'd..

No, not now. Now wasn't the time.

_Keep moving._

It got him walking again, and he turned his back to the building, but he could feel his lonely heart still lingering out in front of it, waiting and yearning for the flicker of movement or sign of life that would never come.

The sun had just begun to peek above the horizon as the last of the corpses were fed into the pyre, and it felt so wrong for the dawn to break on such a catastrophe, but at the same time, he was grateful for the symbolic end of the whole incident. Though, in truth, the tragic impact of that night would affect many for weeks, months, and some, even years to come.

* * *

Of course, just because the cleanup was over didn't mean the memory or talk of it was. The very next day, a new issue of the Bingo Book was distributed to all members of the ANBU with a brand new entry.

"I never imagined that Itachi Uchiha would be put in the Bingo Book," Tenzo commented, looking over the picture of their once-teammate in the personal copies of the updated criminal list they'd received. "S-Class, right from the start.. Well, he did slaughter his entire clan." When Kakashi stayed silent to his offhanded chatter, he looked up from the book and asked, "Hey, what's the matter, Captain? Huh?"

He wasn't much of one to talk about his problems, but it was all just getting to be too heavy, and Tenzo __had__ given him the opening to speak his mind on the matter. "It just goes to show, in the end, I really knew nothing about him," Kakashi replied quietly, voice low as he kept looking into the eyes of the young Uchiha in his own open book, looking for the darkness and hate that was so strong to drive him to do what he did that night and finding nothing in the flat depths of the paper. Not getting his answer, he let the book close and barely held it in his limp hand in front of him. "I understood nothing.."

Tenzo stood more upright from where he'd been leaning against his locker behind Kakashi, deciding to change the subject off of their former teammate. "I wonder what will happen to the Uchiha District.. Will it be torn down?"

His heart stopped for a beat as he glanced over his shoulder at his comrade. "Torn down..?"

"Well, a terrible incident took place there. No one will want to go near it after everything that's happened," Tenzo explained, and he hated that it was an entirely valid point.

Standing from the bench, Kakashi tossed the book into his own locker and closed the door, turning for the exit and not looking at Tenzo as he passed. "I'm going to head home now.."

Home was the last place on his mind.

* * *

Kakashi stood in front of the large open gate, looking through the gaps in the yellow caution tape at the neighborhood beyond. It didn't look so bad now, in full daylight and with all the bodies cleared away, not to mention the fire pit wasn't within sight of the doors. With a short glance up at the banners with the clan's crest hanging above the doors, Kakashi brushed some of the tape aside and stepped through into the District.

He walked slowly with his hands in his pockets like this was any normal stroll, and came to a stop when he ended up in front of the empty apartment building. All of the grief and regrets crawled up from the depths of his mind as he raised his gaze to the window.

"Obito.. What have I been doing..since that day..?"

More than anything, Kakashi wanted to jump up on the balcony like he always used to and call through the open window to the awkward boy sitting at the desk, wondering what was his excuse for being late this time-

Except the window was closed and locked, and had been for years. The desk was empty and cleared of everything but a thick layer of dust. The whole room was as dark and lifeless as the hole he'd left Obito to die in all those years ago.

So, rather than disappoint himself, he turned his back on the house once again, only allowing himself one glance over his shoulder as he trudged away.

Still, he couldn't go home quite yet. Of course, he had to stop at the Memorial Stone first, then Rin's grave, and Sensei's-

He wondered how long the pain could stay so sharp and cutting.

Hours passed, wasted in the graveyard as he talked to the stones as if they could reply to him, casting aside the friends he still had in favor of his mourning.

The question he'd posed in front of Obito's home resurfaced. "What have I been doing.."

Being a useless waste of space, and that was okay with him.

Dying sunlight told him it was time to go, so Kakashi dragged his feet away from the cemetary and headed home, ignoring his surroundings until he passed the bookstore he always visited when he ran out of things to do. A cover of a rain puddle running red with blood and a kunai stabbed into the ground next to a headband caught his attention, and he was almost tempted to pick it up. __How a Shinobi Should Die__ was the familar title. He'd tried reading it before, but he'd never finished it. It was starting to sound interesting again, and he wondered how it ended..

Kakashi decided against it and moved on, finding his feet weren't taking him to his apartment but not having the will to care. A little wandering wouldn't hurt, he supposed.

He was wrong and found it did as his body on autopilot brought him to the end of the walkway of his childhood house and all the painful memories lurking there.

No one had ever moved in after he'd left it, so it had fallen into a sad state of disrepair. The front windows were broken from stones and bricks that had been thrown into them, and the sidings were defaced with hate-filled graffiti that overlapped each other and had faded with time and weathering. He remembered the times he'd used to help his father scrub the spray paint off until it was faint enough to pretend it wasn't there anymore. It soaked into the wood, and left a ghost of the anger and disgrace that could never be wiped away from the clan name.

It was probably for the best that the Hatake name would die with him, then.

He didn't come to this place often, not like he did the graves, but it always lingered in the back of his mind; a constant reminder of the tramua he'd suffered through that had started him down this hellish path he'd chosen.

Even though the actions of the White Fang were long gone from everyone's minds, he still didn't bother trying to fix up the old house. It didn't feel worth it. The house was more of a grave for his father than the one in the cemetary, so it just seemed like it should stay the way it was. Until eventually someone decided to buy it and tear it down to build something worthwhile.

Just as would happen to the Uchiha District.

Who needs an empty apartment of precious memories anyways?

Finally, he manged to get himself on the right path home and let himself in to his quiet apartment. It was a pathetic excuse of a place; barren, with nothing but living essentials and not a picture to be seen on the walls. Spotless and meticulously tidy. It was almost inhuman, and entirely devoid of love.

__It__ was back again, so he went to the kitchen sink and turned on the faucet, slowly scrubbing his hands and filling his sink with blood, even as the thick coat of it remained unchanged on his skin. When he blinked the tears away, he saw the water was crystal clear after all, and turned the tap off, wandering off to the bathroom as he shed his ANBU uniform.

A scalding hot shower didn't make the feeling of blood drenching him any less real, so he gave up and exited the bath, drying and putting on his night clothes of long black shorts and a loose charcoal grey tank top. The steamed up mirror saved him from having to see his reflection as he stepped out of the bathroom into the adjoining bedroom.

His eyes fell on the bedroll on the floor, as he'd never been bothered to get a real bed, but he only felt more lost as he considered sleeping. It would just end in the same violent night terrors it always did. But he was exhausted, both mentally and physically, and he needed the rest. On the other hand, he could try and stay up, maybe head back to the bookstore before it closed to get something to pass the night.. Or he could make dinner, but that was shot down quickly. He was home so little he didn't keep his cupboards very well stocked, and they were likely empty. Besides, he hardly ever ate real food anymore, as much as he'd like to. It just made him sick. It was a lot easier to live off the food pills the ANBU supplied him with. He was likely underweight for it, but he had the muscle mass he needed, so that was good enough. What a shame food was so unnecessary, though. He used to really enjoy cooking before..

It was only fun when he could share what he made with Rin and Obito; even better when they'd whine until he releneted and let them help him make the food. He missed Rin's suggestions of how to improve the dish, and how he'd always be tripping over Obito every five seconds and would have to push him somewhere out of the way before something got spilled.

Kakashi hadn't realized the tears had silently started rolling down his cheeks again while he was lost in thought, and he couldn't be bothered to wipe them away. Instead, he turned away from his bed and wander to the closet, pulling aside the old blankets and boxes until he uncovered the shoe box buried at the very bottom, sitting back on his haunches to let the box rest in his lap for a while before a shaking hand reached up to move aside the lid.

The cardboard was filled with ragged towels and torn shirts he had no use for and that were well beyond the hope of repair, and lying within the many folds of cloth was a framed picture and a pair of broken goggles. He picked up the latter first, lightly tracing the cracks in the orange lens with a fingertip before he set them aside. Kakashi couldn't make himself pick up the photograph, watching droplets of water drip from his tear-stained cheeks onto the protective glass cover, beading up and distorting the faces underneath. He used one of the towels in the box to wipe away the teardrops and took in the joyful expressions he hadn't seen in months. Well, all but his expression were happy. He wished he could go back and smile for that picture, feel some sort of gratitude for the people with him, let his past self know they weren't going to be around forever and to not take them for granted-

He'd ruined his relationship with them all, and now he got to suffer the consequences.

Which would be fine, if they hadn't had to suffer them as well.

Sighing softly, he replaced the goggles back into the shoebox with utmost care, gently wrapping it back up in the cloths before covering it back over so he wouldn't have to see until the next time the urge to unearth it struck him.

How fitting that the people that had once held him just barely above the surface of losing himself would also be the cause of the darkness boring holes in his heart, he thought as he stood and walked toward his bedroll.

Lying down and closing his eyes, he tried his hardest to brace himself for the next inevitable wave of nightmares that he could never truly prepare for, even when he knew what to expect.

__The burning bodies, the dead children, blood running down the front window, Itachi standing over Obito's gored body, Obito burning with the rest of them, Rin's hate, Rin's blood, Rin tearing out his eye-__

It was too much.

He just wasn't ready to face his darkness yet.


End file.
